- some stuff about Teams that's mostly only relevant if you're using your work email for a personal account
- minimium age 13 -> 18; add "Dropbox may use and rely on information from third parties, including age signals from app stores, for the purpose of enforcing this restriction."
- free accounts may be terminated after 6 months of no use (previously 12 months)
- removed "If you reside in the EU, the European Commission provides for an online dispute resolution platform, which you can access here: https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr." from the dispute resolution process.
If you leave that in it's actually worse, since the platform was discontinued. I had to fix all my client's projects to remove this stuff. One of those stillborn ideas of the EU.
1. You must be 18 to use Dropbox. Previously, you had to be 13 if in the United States, or 16 if higher. Dropbox may use information "Dropbox may use and rely on information from third parties, including age signals from app stores, for the purpose of enforcing this restriction."
2. Your account may be terminated if you don't have a Paid account and haven't accessed for 6 months. Previously, it was 12 months.
3. If you have multiple accounts tied to the same email address, and one is banned, the others may also be banned.
4. "Refunds are only issued if required by law." -> "Refunds are only issued in limited circumstances or if required by law."
5. You automatically agree to the new terms if you continue to have an account. Previously, it was only if you continued to use the service.
It would also potentially invalidate clauses like the one in GPL license too: "this version or any later version" — how can anyone consent to yet-unknown terms?
In this particular case and going after the summary from big85, there's one case of legal compliance (like age restrictions — it applies in appropriate jurisdictions even if the ToS is not updated) or maybe two (banning per-account vs per-owner), some widening of the terms to the benefit of the customer (like refunds being permitted in "special circumstances" on top of "required by law, with only "reductionist" change being about lowering service window for unused free accounts (in some jurisdictions, even this could be about respecting data privacy laws — companies are obligated to remove any data which is not used after a certain time, though I think this is 12 months even under GDPR).
As such, I believe this would not be a good case where you can bring enough light how this type of clause is harming one side to the contract.
At least they claim they will give 'reasonable advance notification':
> We’ll provide you with reasonable advance notice via the email address associated with your account to remedy the activity that prompted us to contact you and give you the opportunity to export Your Stuff from our Services. If after such notice you fail to take the steps we ask of you, we’ll terminate or suspend your access to the Services.
I wonder if they are actually going to start enforcing this. I’ve been receiving emails that my account is at ~200% capacity for a little over 13 years (just went through my email to double check). I’ve logged into my account a handful of times over the years, but certainly not every 12 months.
Yes, brave name choice. I went to have a look and the home page is nice, well laid out, and has links to documents. Small free tier to put your feet in the shallow end, and a couple of monthly plans, one aimed at individuals and the other at orgs. Perhaps a family plan would have benefits?
Alas no linux support, not even an api to allow the use of some terminal command to get round GUI fragmentation. Searching for 'sync online storage with linux' leads to a recent redit thread and a Mint Linux forum thread.
I heard you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem
I guess teenagers don't have any need to sync files, eh? Hate to see this gradual erosion of internet access for young people - I'd bet half the notable members of this very site started their career trajectory by learning how to break/fix computers in middle school or before
Hmmmmm today is a very different world compared to when we used the Internet to learn how to code. Now with Ai doing all the coding is learning how to code even happenning anymore?
Also, just talked two friends who work for mid-size companies and last week both of their CEOs told them to just point Ai to their Jira tickets to finish all their tasks. Anyone else hearing their CEOs instruct the same thing?
Amazing Dropbox went from a brilliantly simple service to this stagnating corporate swamp of ooze. Yet another fascinating example of how headcount correlates with quality decline.
The pricing got very complicated, that part is true. On the other hand, service quality didn’t go down. They added many small features which makes things easier, on the other hand.
I use a bunch of additional services they offer. They work well, make me spend less money and save my time (e.g.: send, transcription, advanced sharing controls).
We loved Dropbox and had a family subscription. One of the main reasons we stopped using them (besides it being a US company and Trump threatening declare war to a fellow European NATO ally) was that even though we were paying users, they continuously badgered us with upsells. Using Maestral as a client made things better (at the loss of block-level sync + now unmaintained), but every time I had to log into the web interface I got stupid upsell ads.
I once contacted their customer support about this and their answer was "Oh really? Can you send some examples?" So I sent them screenshots of all the upselling banners, popups, etc. that they showed and I never heard back from them.
It also didn't make sense at all. Why, if I'm using Dropbox for family use, would I upgrade to a business plan?
Why hasn't anyone created a windows and mac client that git pushes changes to remote after file activities of local computer, and polls remote repo every 1 minute for changes to pull? I'd gladly pay for that. :-)
No need for git, syncthing does exactly that (listening to file activity events in selected folders and syncing the change, with twoway sync if so desired) and its free!
Dropbox will be one of the next Bending Spoons acquisitions. Low growth, none of the upsell or product extension things they've done have really worked out, and no-one's idea of what the future looks like.
I don't understand this mentality. Growth must be explosively exponential or things are bad, so company must sell out, close shop and go.
So, Google should sell Google Drive, Box shall close down, PCloud must cease to exist, Mega shall sell itself to a three letter agency a-la Crypto AG, Sugarsync shall vanish, etc...
Yet we are here. These are all stable products chugging along.
That’s the bargain Dropbox made when it took VC and then went public. Public markets don’t price a company purely on today’s cash flow, they price the expected stream of future cash flows. If growth stalls and the attempts to create new growth vectors don’t work, the valuation adjusts accordingly, and at some point an acquisition can become the rational outcome.
Bending Spoons need "great" deals to go after, such as Airtable, etc. Dropbox has a market cap of ~$8B, and it's not "cheap" compared to revenues, etc.
If Dropbox goes "down" in the next few years, perhaps you will eventually be right.
Funny that this is the only Dropbox post I've seen on HN besides infamous references to their launch post. You'd think there would be plenty of interesting improvements to make.
Having been a paid user for the last decade my current experience is just getting error messages on my phone every week that something failed to sync, and that I have to re-enter the app every ~month to disable/enable syncing for my offline files, otherwise it doesn't work. I can't remember any time I've been pleasantly surprised by any change to the service.
This leaves a lot of questions. Why are they raising the age limit? What legislation demands this? Will other services follow? And what if parents give consent? Are users on a family plan now forced to kick off their kids from the joined plan?
Drobpox has an AI backend running on their own clusters. IOW, Dropbox runs their own local models, integrated to their offerings. As their AI offerings get more features, I believe they want to be on the safe side, so they increased the age limit.
TBH, I'm happy because there's an old account I'm unable to access (email address was closed, recovery didn't work) that still has content I would prefer not to be public anymore. The sooner it can vanish the better.
My Dropbox account was deleted after years of inactivity. While it was definitely on me, and their terms clearly stated that "We reserve the right to" delete the account, I was surprised that no notification was sent. Yes, I checked my emails, nothing.
85 comments
[ 0.15 ms ] story [ 30.4 ms ] thread- You must access Dropbox every 6 months (from 12) if you have a free to ensure they don't delete your account
It's 2026 and they're handling IT like pariahs of the stone age.
Even they grey beards of the 70s would have worked that out easily.
https://www.diffchecker.com/QD8AKShC/
https://github.com/technikhil314/offline-diff-viewer
Probably related to those ill-conceived “why won’t someone think of the children?!” laws.
Also, I think they shortened the deletion window of free accounts to be after 6 consecutive months of non-use.
- some stuff about Teams that's mostly only relevant if you're using your work email for a personal account
- minimium age 13 -> 18; add "Dropbox may use and rely on information from third parties, including age signals from app stores, for the purpose of enforcing this restriction."
- free accounts may be terminated after 6 months of no use (previously 12 months)
- removed "If you reside in the EU, the European Commission provides for an online dispute resolution platform, which you can access here: https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr." from the dispute resolution process.
> The European Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) Platform is discontinued as of 20 July 2025
1. You must be 18 to use Dropbox. Previously, you had to be 13 if in the United States, or 16 if higher. Dropbox may use information "Dropbox may use and rely on information from third parties, including age signals from app stores, for the purpose of enforcing this restriction."
2. Your account may be terminated if you don't have a Paid account and haven't accessed for 6 months. Previously, it was 12 months.
3. If you have multiple accounts tied to the same email address, and one is banned, the others may also be banned.
4. "Refunds are only issued if required by law." -> "Refunds are only issued in limited circumstances or if required by law."
5. You automatically agree to the new terms if you continue to have an account. Previously, it was only if you continued to use the service.
6. Some terms covering Teams accounts.
I would really love to see courts throw this BS out.
It would also potentially invalidate clauses like the one in GPL license too: "this version or any later version" — how can anyone consent to yet-unknown terms?
In this particular case and going after the summary from big85, there's one case of legal compliance (like age restrictions — it applies in appropriate jurisdictions even if the ToS is not updated) or maybe two (banning per-account vs per-owner), some widening of the terms to the benefit of the customer (like refunds being permitted in "special circumstances" on top of "required by law, with only "reductionist" change being about lowering service window for unused free accounts (in some jurisdictions, even this could be about respecting data privacy laws — companies are obligated to remove any data which is not used after a certain time, though I think this is 12 months even under GDPR).
As such, I believe this would not be a good case where you can bring enough light how this type of clause is harming one side to the contract.
I hope file sync is treated as "access", otherwise this would make me anxious.
> We’ll provide you with reasonable advance notice via the email address associated with your account to remedy the activity that prompted us to contact you and give you the opportunity to export Your Stuff from our Services. If after such notice you fail to take the steps we ask of you, we’ll terminate or suspend your access to the Services.
Alas no linux support, not even an api to allow the use of some terminal command to get round GUI fragmentation. Searching for 'sync online storage with linux' leads to a recent redit thread and a Mint Linux forum thread.
Accidentally lost a bunch of data that way, figured I’d spread the word.
Also bypasses the free Dropbox account's limitations on 3 devices.
1 click install, daily backups, no need to manage anything
Just get yourself a Hetzner Storage Share for 4.29€/m with nextcloud managed for you and 1TB!
https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-share/
A single purpose service is always more efficient then a more generilized one
Also, just talked two friends who work for mid-size companies and last week both of their CEOs told them to just point Ai to their Jira tickets to finish all their tasks. Anyone else hearing their CEOs instruct the same thing?
It won't be surprising if the requirement comes from some alphabet agency.
I use a bunch of additional services they offer. They work well, make me spend less money and save my time (e.g.: send, transcription, advanced sharing controls).
I once contacted their customer support about this and their answer was "Oh really? Can you send some examples?" So I sent them screenshots of all the upselling banners, popups, etc. that they showed and I never heard back from them.
It also didn't make sense at all. Why, if I'm using Dropbox for family use, would I upgrade to a business plan?
So, Google should sell Google Drive, Box shall close down, PCloud must cease to exist, Mega shall sell itself to a three letter agency a-la Crypto AG, Sugarsync shall vanish, etc...
Yet we are here. These are all stable products chugging along.
Bending Spoons need "great" deals to go after, such as Airtable, etc. Dropbox has a market cap of ~$8B, and it's not "cheap" compared to revenues, etc.
If Dropbox goes "down" in the next few years, perhaps you will eventually be right.
At first I was selective in what folders I synced but after a few months I decided to just sync my entire workspace folder with everything in it.
Incredibly convenient, everything is automatically synced between my desktop and laptop.
If you go this route look into filters, it's not a very advertised feature but works great for excluding build output, venvs and other stuff.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
Having been a paid user for the last decade my current experience is just getting error messages on my phone every week that something failed to sync, and that I have to re-enter the app every ~month to disable/enable syncing for my offline files, otherwise it doesn't work. I can't remember any time I've been pleasantly surprised by any change to the service.
Mission SF Soccer remembers.
Needles to say, I never used Dropbox since then.
I guess the only way to get or export your data is through the desktop client?